The Columbus Affair: A Novel

How could that be?

———

ALLE SAT WITH BRIAN. THE VIDEO FEED WAS OVER. THEY’D watched as the man on the other end had jumped a ditch and entered an orchard, driving down a rough lane between blooming orange trees. He’d then left the car, gone for about fifteen minutes before returning to report what happened.

He’d been about fifty yards away, but was able to hear Simon and Tom Sagan yell at each other. Sagan wanted his daughter and Simon made clear she was in Vienna.

“But I’m dead to him,” she said to Brian. “He’s bluffing?”

“A good play because there’s no way your father can know the truth.”

She’d listened while the eyes and ears in Florida reported the meeting place for tomorrow—5:00 P.M., inside St. Stephen’s.

“Your father thinks he’ll be safe there,” Brian said.

She’d visited the cathedral a couple of weeks ago. “There’re a lot of people there.”

“But you said it. You’re dead to Simon. He knows he can’t make a trade.”

Yet Zachariah had agreed to the exchange.

Her eyes betrayed her thoughts of concern.

“That’s right,” Brian said. “Your father’s going exactly where Simon wants him to go. The question is, do you give a damn?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

BENE FOLLOWED FRANK CLARKE UP THE RUGGED TRAIL through a carpet of ground ferns and across pebbles greased with mud. Luckily, he’d dressed for his trek to Charles Town, wearing old jeans and boots. The colonel was armed with a machet, which he used to hack low-lying limbs that blocked their way. The raucous call of a parrot drifted through the high forest, as did the incessant tapping of woodpeckers. No fear of poisonous snakes. Mongooses imported from India centuries ago to deal with rats had eliminated all of those.

He was three years shy of forty and in good shape, but this climb taxed him. His face was streaked in sweat, rivulets soaked his shirt. The colonel was thirty years his senior, yet the inclined trail seemed no problem, the older man’s steps slow and cautious, his breathing shallow. Every time he trekked into the mountains Bene thought of his ancestors. Eboes from the Bight of Benin. Mandingoes from Sierra Leone. Papaws stolen from the Congo and Angola. Coromantees captured on the Gold Coast.

They’d been the toughest.

Nearly all of the great Maroon leaders had been Coromantees, including his great-great-great-grandfather.

His mother had many times told him about the African’s tortuous path to the New World. First had come capture, then confinement at a fort or trade post. Next was a clustering with other captives, most strangers, some enemies. The fourth turmoil involved being packed onto overcrowded ships and sailed across the Atlantic. Many had not survived that trip, their corpses tossed overboard. Those who did formed bonds that would last for generations—shipbrothers and -sisters was what they would forever call one another. The fifth trauma happened on arrival when they were prepared like cattle, then sold. The final ordeal, known as seasoning, was when others, already there and accustomed to a yoke, taught them how to survive.

The Dutch, English, and Portuguese were all guilty.

And though the physical shackles were long gone, a form of mental slavery remained where some Jamaicans refused to embrace their African past.

Maroons were not in that category.

They’d not forgotten.

And never would.

They kept climbing. A rush of water could be heard ahead. Good. He was thirsty. The trees were ablaze with the Flame of the Forest. He’d learned about the red flowers as a child, his mother telling him how their stinky juice was good for eye infections. As a boy he’d imagined what it must have been like to be a Maroon warrior, wading up streams to mask his scent. Walking backward to create tracks to nowhere. Luring British soldiers to precipices from which there was no escape, or herding them into narrow passages and pelting them with boulders, logs, and arrows. Goats were used to test water supplies which the enemy liked to poison, but the animals were never allowed into settlements since baying would betray their location. Warriors were masters of ambush, wrapping their bodies from head to toe in cacoon vines. Not even the eyes were exposed. Even their lance, the jonga, was concealed under a dense blanket of leaves. Which made them totally invisible in the forest. A huge advantage. One never spoken about, one of those secrets that Maroons kept to themselves.

After a battle they would slaughter every opposing soldier but one or two, whom they released so they could report both the defeat and an unspoken challenge.

Send more.

Please.

“The ol’ ones are with us today,” Frank said.

“You hear duppies, Frank?”

“Not the bad spirits. Only the ol’ people. They wander the woods and look after us.”

He’d heard tales of duppies. Spirits that spoke in high nasal voices and were repelled by salt. If they were nearby, your head would seem full, your skin hot. They could even make you sick, which was why his mother had always asked when he was little—after he’d hurt himself—duppy box you there?